Menudo

Today I made menudo, a dish from my childhood. I’ve eaten it countless times growing up. In our house, it was not a special dish that was served at parties. Instead it was an everyday dish that my mom or the maids would prepare for regular days. Just simple comfort food.

FYI, Filipino menudo is very different from Mexican menudo. But mine is not quite the Pinoy version either. For my take on menudo, I skipped the atay (I hate liver), omitted raisins (Jamie hates raisins), didn’t add potatoes (we had none in the pantry), added green peas (cause the dish looked way too red), and used sausage instead of hotdogs.

It looks close enough and still tastes like home. While eating it, it made me homesick for the fun family meals we had back home. 😢😢😢 Missing my dad, mom, my brothers and sisters, and the many friends always present, gathered around our giant dining table. It’s amazing how the taste and smell of a dish can bring you home. ❤️❤️❤️

Not Fighting My Child's Battles

The other day, I picked Jamie up from school and right away noticed she wasn’t her usual bubbly self.  I gently pried to find out why as she was hesitant to open up right away.  Turns out during play time, she was in the sand pit playing with her friends Isabella and Brooklyn (I. and B.).  When her two friends ran off, Jamie couldn’t find them, so she turned and started playing with one of her first grade friends.  Later, I. and B. came back and told Jamie they wanted to resume playing (they had raced off thinking Jamie was following them).  Jamie couldn’t just then as she was finishing building sand pits with her first grade playmate.  Once she finished though, she ran towards I. and B. to let them know they could all play together again.  Well, by that time, I. (the more outspoken and more assertive of the two) said “No, you can’t play with us anymore.  You picked someone else.”.  Jamie tried to follow them and explain.  And I. loudly said “Stop following us. Go away.  If you follow us, I’m going to put red ants on you”.  Then when Jamie tried again, I. leaned towards the ground to pick up red ants.  So, Jamie just walked away. 

Ordinarily, other kids would shrug it off.  But Jamie is very sensitive to things like rejection.  Also, it isn’t the first time I. has been domineering towards her.  And so, it deeply affected Jamie to the point that she started crying when she retold the story to me.  My first reaction was to go all “mama bear” and hunt down I. to tell her off.  But I calmed down enough to think rationally.  I thought about bringing this up to Mrs. Sitter (the 2^nd grade teacher) or even the school principal.  However, it was (as of now) an isolated incident and I didn’t think it was fair to get anyone in trouble for that.  Also, I didn’t want to be that kind of mom who makes mountains out of molehills because someone made her daughter cry in the playground.  Lastly, I didn’t want to give Jamie the impression that I would “fight all her battles” for her and that she could just sit back and just let mommy deal with her problems.  As much as I wanted to do it for her, I think being a good mom is allowing your kids to learn to deal with things their way (while standing in the background and cheering them on!).

So, I let it go.  But made sure I explained to Jamie that what I. did (being mean) and what B. did (being passive to someone being mean) is not right and definitely not something I’d want her to do.  Then I explained that she needs to stand up for herself too.  That means either speaking up and confronting someone or in some cases, just walking away when confrontation is futile or will just escalate things.  I explained that in life there are little battles we go through and we just need to pick and choose what are worth fighting over.  Winning is not always being the loudest in arguing, or most dominant person, in some cases, it could be the better person is the one that just lets things go and moves on with their lives.  But at the end of it all, I told her, that the person who does things with kindness is the person who ends up being the winner.  It seems to have resonated with Jamie and she seems to understand what I was trying to say.  She also said it would probably better to just hang out with her other friends (she has many others!) rather than with I. or even B., at this time.

P.S. For anyone curious as to what happened next, read on:  I should have mentioned, I.’s mom is someone I have gotten friendly with over the last year or so.  She and I text regularly about the girls and random school stuff.  Anyway, the next text I sent, I casually brought up what happened.  I made it VERY CLEAR that I was not accusing her daughter of anything but only that her daughter’s actions had hurt Jamie.  I told her I was sad because the girls are such good friends.  I.’s mom was very gracious and very apologetic.  She said that I. did admit to doing those things and was also sorry.  In fact, she wanted to video chat with Jamie to apologize.  (Also, I later heard that I. got in trouble when her dad found out what happened.  I. is grounded from using her Ipad and watching tv for a week so she will remember to use kind word (her mom said).